?

FLAMBEAU.

Can't you recall me?

THE DUKE.

Not at all.

FLAMBEAU.

One Thursday in the garden of Saint Cloud
Marshal Duroc stood with a maid-in-waiting,
Watching your Highness at his nurse's breast--
Its whiteness, I remember, startled me.
Marshal Duroc exclaimed, "Come here!" I came.
But there were lots of things to make me nervous:
The Imperial child, the gorgeous rosy sleeves
The Maid of honor wore, Duroc, the breast--
In short, the tuft was shivering on my bearskin;
So much so that your Highness noticed it.
You gazed upon it pensively: what was it?
And while you hailed it with a milky laugh
You seemed uncertain which to admire the more
About this moving scarlet miracle:
Its motion, or the fact that it was scarlet.
Suddenly, while I stooped, your little hands
Began lo pull the precious tuft about.
Seeing my plight, the Marshal cried severely,
"Don't interfere"--I didn't interfere;
But having sunk upon my knees I heard
The nurse, the marshal, and the lady laughing.
And when I rose the grass was strewn with red:
As for my tuft, that was a beardless wire.
"I'll sign an order," said Duroc, "for two."
Back to my quarters then I strutted radiant;
"You there! hulloa!" exclaimed the Adjutant,
"Who's plucked you?" And I cried: "The King of Rome!"
And that is how one Thursday morn I met
Your Majesty. Your Highness has developed.

THE DUKE.

No, not developed: that is why I grieve.
My "Majesty" has shrivelled to my "Highness."

MARMONT.

[_To_ FLAMBEAU.]

But since the Empire fell, what have you done?

FLAMBEAU.

I think I've acted like a decent beggar.
I know Fournier and Solignac. In May
Eighteen-sixteen Didier and Sarloveze
Conspire and fail. I see the child Miard
Perish, and David the old man, and weep;
They'd have beheaded me, but I am missing.
Good. I come back to Paris with an alias;
I smash a footstool on a royal guard
Because he'd trodden on my favorite corn.
I take the chair at noisy drinking bouts,
Spend thirty pence a month. I nurse a hope
That in the Var that Other still may land.
I swagger in a Bonapartist hat
And call whoever stares at me a vampire.
I fight some thirty duels. I conspire
At Beziers; fail. They'd have beheaded me,
But I am missing. Good. I join at once
The plot at Lyons. All are seized. I fly.
They'd have beheaded me, but I am missing.
So I come back to Paris, where, by chance,
I find myself mixed up in the Bazaar plo